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Memoirs sell, and people like to write them. In a way they’ve replaced oral tradition as a means of transmitting family history. Though there seems to be surfeit of memoirs, many feel the need to add their own story to the heap. I am in that group. The memoir I am currently writing is actually the third version of the same story. With each telling, my narrative becomes less wordy and more truthful. What I’m attempting to do in my current version is to scrub conjecture from description. As Sargent Friday would say, “Just the facts”. This is a particular challenge, because the period I cover is the first eleven years of my life. How reliable can the “facts” be from that time? To compensate for the paucity of objective details I embellish my telling with images. These are truthful, because they are impressions of memories. What they lack in technical skill, I hope they make up for in emotional content. The picture above is representative of these drawings. If you click on the link, you can read the passage that accompanies this image in my book, Arrow Axes and Scythes.

The Well in My Backyard

Many years ago, when I was so young that I didn’t have a sense of who I was, an art teacher gave me a failing grade: she didn’t believe I could create such awful work with honest effort. That teacher stole something from me, because I believed her. Art wasn’t for me. I thought it was a language I couldn’t speak or understand.

In the last few years, I’ve thrown off the chains with which judgment can bind. I reconsidered art. So what if mine is bad? I could found joy in it. And so I dabbled. And gained new sight. Clouds had depth, trees subtle tones. Shadows lay under tables and across a distant horizon. Color came alive for me. Art now is mine as much as it is anyone’s. Perhaps no one else will enjoy my art, but it is good for me.

And so this blog will feature art and artists. It will feature writers, painters, photographers and any form of expression that can remotely be considered art. Below this introduction is my first 2017 book review for Rumors. Many, many more will follow.

I hope you enjoy this review and that you keep checking back to see additions to the site.

Book Review

Susan, By Stella Budrikis

This is the second oldest building in Queensland, Australia. It sits on a wharf and once was used to house immigrants. The photo is from the State Library of Queensland.

In 2013, Genealogy and History News (dedicated to the interests of genealogy hobbyists) estimated that 11,217,000 people from English-speaking nations were earnestly researching family history. Hobbyists from the United States dominated the field. Australians, 583,000 of them, ranked fourth in family background searches. The author of Susan, Stella Budrikis, is surely one of the most dedicated of these genealogy enthusiasts. Ms. Budrikis not only maintains a website dedicated to family history, but has also written a book about one of her forebears. Her book is a clear-eyed narrative. It is a delightful read, even for those who are not part of her extended family.

The title of the book refers to Susan Mason, Ms. Budrikis’ great-great grandmother. In tracing the eponymous Susan’s life, Ms. Budrikis takes readers on a journey through the hardscrabble existence of Australia’s early European immigrants. Many of these immigrants were involuntary transplants from the British Isles, or transplants who agreed under duress to leave their homelands. Ms. Budrikis does not shrink from the less attractive aspects of her ancestor’s biography. This straightforward approach renders her story credible and fascinating.

The people she writes about were real. They struggled to survive in the harshest of circumstances. Only the fortunate, and hardy, managed to reach maturity and raise families. Susan Mason was one of these determined survivors. She eventually married, left Australia and had children. Some of her children thrived and some did not. The author’s great-grandmother, Eliza Whybrew, was one who made it to adulthood. Her life, it seems, took a turn toward stability when she married into a family that was involved with the Salvation Army.

Ms. Budrikis wonders in her Afterword if she did right by Susan Mason in telling this story so honestly. The author writes, “I hope that by telling her story I have given her, and other women like her, a recognition that they were denied in their lifetime”. Indeed she has. I’m left with the impression of a survivor, of a young woman who used her native abilities to navigate an inhospitable universe. I think Ms. Budrikis honors Susan Mason’s life with this book.

I very much enjoyed reading about Susan Mason. But this book is not simply about her life. It’s about the grim circumstances of transportation, the social dynamic of early Australia, epidemics and high childhood mortality. It is about grit and survival. I highly recommend this book.